Group Puts Pressure On Prostitutes' Johns

Group Puts Pressure On Prostitutes' Johns

April 07, 1992|By MATTHEW KAUFFMAN; Courant Staff Writer

NEW HAVEN — It is 3 o'clock on a warm, sunny afternoon and Joseph Firine is having fun, playing cat-and-mouse with one of the prostitutes and one of the regular customers he says are trashing his fragile, middle-class neighborhood.

As they take a circuitous drive out of town, Firine is close behind, steering a Plymouth that could be -- and often is -- mistaken for an unmarked police car. He is sure they know he is following them. He hopes they are nervous.

Firine does this sort of thing often. But lately, the action has been harder to find in the Edgewood Avenue neighborhood.

"The past week, there hasn't been much going on," Firine says. "It's been pretty quiet around here."

No wonder. After giving up the chase, Firine motors toward home, and passes the most dramatic and most controversial of his anti-hooker handiwork. Driving down Edgewood Avenue, Firine passes a line of trees with identical photocopied messages.

"JOHN OF THE WEEK," the leaflets proclaim in large letters. And underneath, on tree after tree, is the name and address of a man arrested last month for soliciting a prostitute in the neighborhood.

"Johns!" the posters warn. "Stay out of our neighborhood or your name will be here next week."

The posters are changed weekly. So far, three men have been featured. One is now facing divorce, and he and one of the other men have hired a lawyer to pursue their grievances. All three have received harassing phone calls. But Firine said the campaign will go on.

"We're just not going to take this any more," he said. "I grew up in this neighborhood and it was never like this. I don't want my kids to grow up with this."

Prostitutes sometimes engage in sex along side streets of the residential neighborhood, Firine said. Women who live in the area are often solicited by men who interpret a curious look at their cars as an invitation. Prostitutes share the same block with young children waiting for school buses. "They drop used condoms right there in front of them," Firine said. "It's insane."

In past years, members of the Edgewood Neighborhood Association, of which Firine is president, have asked police to crack down on prostitutes in the area. But occasional sting operations had little impact.

"Prostitutes have nothing to lose. If they're arrested, they're out on the street in a day or an hour or however long it takes," Firine said. "This year, we're trying to go after the johns, and it seems to be working. A john has a lot to lose."

In court, however, the three men named on the posters lost little. All three had been charged with patronizing a prostitute, but were allowed to plead guilty to creating a public disturbance and pay a $35 fine.

John Williams, a civil rights lawyer hired by two of the men to seek damages for harassment, said he used to live in the Edgewood area and has noticed the increase in prostitution on his daily commute through the area. He said he had no quarrel with residents' concerns.

"What I do very much quarrel with is, `This person has been arrested. Here is his name; here is his address; here is his phone number. Do with it what you will,' " Williams said. "It's an open invitation, if not solicitation, to call and harass these people's wives and children."

Sgt. Archie Generoso, who runs the police substation in the area and gets daily complaints about prostitution, said he, too, found the phone calls to suspected johns distasteful.

"I don't really agree with the tactics they're using, but I understand why they're doing it and I understand their frustration," Generoso said. "What they want, all they want, is a safe neighborhood where their families can come and go."

The power of exposure and humiliation is strong in a society where inquiring minds want to know everything. The hottest book in West Hartford last year was not at the library. It was at the police department and contained the names of the prominent and not-so-prominent who did business with the Touch of Class escort service.

In Tamarac, Fla., the possibility that a judge would order the release of "The List" -- names of men believed to have consorted with self-proclaimed nymphomaniac Kathy Willets -- launched news stories around the country in the fall and sent several nervous men scrambling to lawyers.

That crushing fear of publicity is at the heart of many anti-prostitution crusades. On Long Island last year, a civic association in the village of Wyandanch sent copies of police reports to the homes of 63 men arrested for soliciting prostitutes there. The words "patronizing a prostitute" were written in red ink on the outside of the envelopes.

Newspapers in at least five states run stories or carry advertisements listing the names of men arrested or convicted on prostitution charges.

In some places, the programs have been credited with reducing prostitution. But they have also had tragic consequences.